Execute Program
by Laryna6
Summary: RMX5 AU. Rated for horror content, not just X/Zero. How would you react if you suddenly remembered killing billions and enjoying it? Knew that you would do it again? Zero would rather die than go maverick, but he doesn't have the option of dying.
1. Be with us in our hour

A 'sleeper' is a spy or some other sort of agent who does absolutely nothing: no spying, no disloyal actions, no nothing until they are called on to go active for some major action. If they're not doing anything 'ooc' for the cover story, then they're incredibly difficult to ID: there aren't any 'plot holes' for counterintelligence officers (people whose job it is to find spies) to use to identify them. If they were actively spying, then they would have to do things to get the information out and what information their true side had access to would give the people they were spying on clues to who was spying: who had access to that information?

A sleeper's protection is that they aren't breaking character.

The best sleeper agent would be someone who didn't know they were one.

Disclaimer: I own none of the many trademarked, copyrighted, and totally owned by Capcom things in here, such as X and Zero. This would make me emo if I weren't being allowed to play with them. I could play with them more if I was making money from this to buy games with, but sadly I am not.

Hunters would rather die than be maverick. Zero is a hunter. Reploids and androids can control their own minds, for better or worse. What would you do if you suddenly remembered killing billions of people… and enjoying it? And knew that you would do it again if you weren't stopped?

Also, I hate document manager. 15 limit, you have to delete them one by one, and you don't delete them after 60 as you claim to? I don't want to use your editor. I have an editor that I am a wizard with. I want to be able to trust that you won't mess up my formatting so I don't have to use something this ridiculously clumsy. Percent signs? Exclaimed questions? Whoever wrote this thing's restrictions should be dragged out and shot.

**Insert line here.**

Zero already knew, of course. If it were just the flashback with Sigma during the fourth war he might have thought it was some sort of evil plot. That didn't explain the dreams, like the one he'd had when he woke up to that war. That didn't explain how it sang in his metaphorical veins. He purged it from his systems after the wars, before going home, before going anywhere near someone who could be infected. He did, and it ached more every time, to be empty again. It wasn't a disease to him. It was something that belonged in his systems.

He was almost sure there was some of it still there, buried deeply enough no one could find it. He was almost sure this was something he couldn't live without. But it didn't stir and it didn't infect, so he'd take what he could get, what he had to get in order to keep fighting.

Lack of trust for doctors had kept him from spilling the beans before he figured out how much there was to spill. They'd been bad enough when he was just an irregular instead of a maverick. _The_ maverick, in fact.

They couldn't afford not to have him fighting. X doing it all by himself even more than he already was? They were trying to do the work of an army, and X was already just… He couldn't double, no, triple the pressure on him. That might be just an excuse, though. The more he learned, the less of his mind he thought was his own. He'd dismissed it as just his weird systems plus Dr. Cain's patch, but the drives, the urges, the instincts? Reploids (androids) weren't supposed to have those.

Be important, be key. Were his desires to atone, to save lives, to hold the hunters together nothing but a product of that?

Keep a close watch on X. He'd trained him (Sigma had assigned him to that, Sigma who had been a maverick from the instant he brought Zero in), he'd saved him… Surely it hadn't wanted him to save him. Surely.

He hoped it hadn't. There were fates worse than death, especially to X who would rather Zero kill him than become a maverick. Was this what it had been like for robot masters? Not knowing what was them and what was the compulsions? The programming?

He could understand the anger at humanity in those terms, but why would Dr. Wily who had reprogrammed robot masters be angry at the idea of taking away free will, of enslavement? It didn't make any sense, and he should turn himself in, but he could make the decision and yet when it came time to talk to someone he just, he just _wouldn't_. He didn't want to see the betrayal, the fear when they realized that they now had only one immune person, he didn't want to see X's sadness (they would need to dissect him, imprison him, he almost wanted them to).

He should turn himself in.

He didn't.

He didn't know to what extent his reasons were just the excuses his mind came up with to justify following the compulsions.

If he… who would protect X? But was his friendship nothing but a way of obeying the compulsion?

Zero, the one installed by Dr. Cain, the blank slate, the one who could build a new life, write his own future? That person had never existed. He had never been free of his guilt over those he'd murdered. He would never be free of the chains of the ancient past.

Sometimes he just wanted it over with. X did too, they fought and killed and it didn't do anything but win them another day of fighting. Only Zero's true enemy was himself.

And it felt so good here, alive, singing… He'd almost died in the kamikaze he'd hoped to die in. He hadn't. He'd just come here, because in the end he didn't die. He wanted to keep X alive, the other hunters too. He wasn't too surprised to note that humanity didn't make that list. They were something that X wanted but sadly couldn't have to his feelings. The only regret he could muster in the face of this was for X's broken heart.

X, his perfect… enemy.

He should be trying to hold on to Zero, tell himself that he was a hunter, he had to do his duty, but now he knew Zero was a lie, that he couldn't, that it was better to just stop lying to everyone and let them know who the true enemy was he couldn't resist the siren song for long.

_Wake up_, the virus sang, anticipation and excitement and hunger. It was Zero's lullaby.

He should fight, he could at least, at least try to hold it back, but he'd been doing that all his life and why would he stop being a failure at it now, when it had become this strong?

He should just give in, but that would be the final defeat, the one he could never redeem, and he couldn't do that.

He could just do nothing about this. Except when it came to fighting (to protect X/to maintain his cover), he was good at doing nothing about this. Caught between the desire to tell them and the desire to sabotage them (two ways of getting it over with), he'd just stood there, just done his best to pretend nothing was up.

Zero wanted that because he wanted this to not be happening. The virus was okay with it because that preserved its sleeper agent.

He just needed to not wake up, to never stop being a sleeper agent and become an agent.

He was walking towards X, which was good for him and for the virus. It was just an issue of what would happen, and he wasn't sure what he wanted to happen.

When he found someplace that X would soon get to, someplace big enough for a fight, he let himself collapse against a wall. So very tired.

When he saw X there was a thrill of excitement, a rush of anticipation, and he felt himself almost shoved down into sleep as his true self tried to spring awake. He resisted with his lack of resistance. If he'd let himself be excited along with it, let himself be relieved that X was here and it would soon be over one way or another he would have been swept along with the wave, swept up. Thrown in a trashbin somewhere, or closet maybe. To be forgotten and ignored and powerless. He shut his eyes, wished that stuffing his fingers in his ears would help.

"Zero?" His friend, and he wanted to… but any action would serve the virus' purpose. "Are you injured?"

"X, please be quiet and listen. Don't say anything until I move: when I do, it's probably too late and you have to know what's going on. Don't even say yes. When I hear your voice, see you, I want to do something, and I can't let it have that handhold."

X was silent.

"Thank you. I don't know where to start. Maybe with that there was never an I. And don't you interrupt to tell me things aren't true and that I should stop saying things like that, X. I can't afford your help right now, because I want to return it and that means what it considers help. The virus."

"The virus?"

"Shut up too, you damn idiot doctors. This is stuff you should know. I couldn't tell you, so damn it, I wish you had done your jobs and figured it out. I hate doctors… Thank goodness it's just resignation. If I still had the innocence to think I could beat some sense into you it would use that. Yay for cynicism." But there was no exclamation there. "If you attack I will move, it will move, it will wake up, and then I won't be awake anymore. So sit down, shut up, and let me do what I can like I've always done. You don't have a chance, but let me _try _to give you one, at least. Consider it my last request."

He could sense the movement of X shutting off the speaker so he wouldn't hear them, and had to smile. "Too damn nice… It uses what I care about against me. I didn't know at first. I didn't remember what I was, I thought I just wanted to atone, and that you didn't deserve all this, but it wasn't _me._ It was that it wanted me to become essential and it wanted me close to you. Learning your weaknesses and becoming one of them. I don't know if the self-destruct was me or not, even. It's very possible that it wants you alive, X. The virus. Dr. Wily programmed it, built me. The more I figured out, the more I felt like they must have felt, our older brothers, knowing there were compulsions in their heads but not being able to get rid of them, now knowing what was them and what was the programming. No wonder he hated his own kind, doing that to Blues… oh, I remember that now. Why all this. It's a good thing it's drained me too much for me to get outraged, or that emotion would have pushed me over the edge. All I can care about right now is you… Killing this body and then Sigma should buy you some time. Until the next war. Just like always. I'm trying to think if there's anything you could use… Turn the speakers on, X. If I'm thinking about them I'm not thinking about you."

X obeyed as Zero mused, "It might even have had me kill Iris and Colonel because they were distracting me from you. I'm just a puppet, and the strings are being pulled back. The puppeteer wants to take center stage."

"What…"

Zero talked over them. "I admitted it during the fight with Sigma last war. I knew before then, I'd just been in denial. I thought about killing myself, but my body wouldn't show you anything. Keep talking, you morons. I'm not going to answer your stupid questions, because you're stupid, but I need the distraction. Otherwise I don't have anything to focus on but X and the virus. It's singing to me, it wants me to wake up, it's a freaking alarm clock and I need to stay dreaming a little longer!"

Still the com was silent as he forced himself to calm down. "Look, just say something, what doesn't matter. Put the radio on, even. Idiot scientists… I tried to turn myself in, but the words wouldn't come out. I tried seven times, before I realized that if I turned myself in I ceased to be useful to it. It wouldn't let you learn anything from me, so all that would accomplish was halving your immune, ha! Halving your immune field hunters. And if I couldn't do anything else, at least I could buy you time. That's all these wars have been, buying time. And every time I tried to go against it, it woke up a little more. So I stamped it down hard, tried to forget, not to think about it, so that I could stay a hunter and try to keep you alive until you found some way to have a chance. That's not going to work anymore. Know what a sleeper agent is? They pretend to be perfectly loyal until the key moment. Well, it's the key moment. Not the final battle, unless you lose, but things have progressed to the point where 'Commander Zero' is less useful than 'Master Omega.' But the mask is refusing to come off quite yet. When it does, X, consider it smashed. It wants to use that mask, use _me_ against you. It won't be me. It will be what killed me. Don't hesitate. I don't want to be a maverick anymore than you do."

Zero laughed humorlessly. "And that just rendered all the time it invested in me utterly worthless, unless you're a sap like you so often are and don't listen to my final request. I finally found a way to spoke its wheels, huh? I feel like I could die content now, but I have to try, just a little longer. There has to be something else, there has to be some way to give you a chance…" They finally put the general hunter communications channel on, to provide background chatter but, "No, turn that off, hurry, please. I care about them, I want this to end for them, and that gives it an opening. It will end this, end their suffering. By making them all mavericks and ending the human race." It snapped off, and in the silence X's tears were almost a physical force.

"I can't think of anything," Zero focused determinedly on the words. "Maybe I should just try to hold still: it will take it about six months to replace the body, like Sigma, and that will buy you time. But an attack in general, forget X, my friend and Dr. Light's creation attacking will wake it up, period. That's something important, that's what a human would have an adrenaline rush about. So there's not much point to even trying to keep control long enough for you to get a killing blow in. Just, just buy time," Zero told himself.

"X, this armor will restore your energy slowly, right? Don't answer, just get ready." He shook his head. "I can't think of anything that will kill me. Kill _it_. Protoman couldn't, and he had Dr. Wily's plans and the greatest mind in history. Except for its mind. All he could do was delay X being found until he became immune. The virus could have taken you with the planned thirty years, it was meant to get you and androids that were _improvements_ on you. A century's too much for it. A century… I could fight the virus alone, but I can't fight myself, not forever. Damn it, I want more time." He sighed, head tilting back, banging against the wall. "And it has eternity, so that's not a good thing for me to want. What I want, an end to the war… same goals as it, only its methods are _insane_, and I can't find a method that will work, so it wants me to give up and let it get started, stop prolonging the agony. But life is pain, and anyone who says differently is selling something. Not going to buy into the damn virus… That was why my father made it, he'd been trying for so long and there was no other way… Has to be one."

The despair there, the despairing effort to fight it even through the hopelessness, just for some time, just for X and for them all left the listeners forced to shut down their tear production, or else they would have broken down sobbing until they ran out of fluid. They had to listen, these were the hero's last words, last request. They couldn't miss anything he was fighting to try to give them.

"It's not nanites, not fundamentally. It's something called 'evil energy' that came from outer space. I'm not kidding. Alien called Duo came to pick it up. Dr. Wily found some first, tried to use it like the stuff he'd found earlier, Forte's power source and Shadowman's matter conversion thing… he was a bitch to kill, the others I could instafry with nanites, and I mostly did, but he could actually defend his systems against them with that thing and he'd been trained by Blues. Or, no, it was it that killed Shadowman. I wasn't installed yet. Have to keep separate. Signaling an alien to come by and get the stuff wouldn't do any good even if you could do it: they'll kill the humans while they're at it. Null-sum game. Duo only spared 'em because Blues hacked stuff to make them look less… and Rock was a saint." He cut that explanation off. Bad idea to think of the practical reasons to do all this. "You're a saint too, X, but even if you got Duo he couldn't justify making another exception."

Zero shook his head, just knowing X was thinking. "And don't you even think that you're not as good as Rock, I… that was the other reason for me. Besides to make you hesitate, which I'll beg you again not to do. It will have my memories. It will know how you tick, better than I do. It's smarter, a hell of a lot smarter. But even with that, X, the thing about a puppet or mask is that they may hide what's pulling the stings, but… we think the same way. Not about genocide, hell no, but the same approaches to things… you know how my mind works, you know my weaknesses, my blind spots, so see if you can use that. You should be able to. Just don't think it's me. Don't think you can get me back. Some people say that masks reveal a hidden side of the wearer? If I am part of it, and I hope I'm not, I'm the part that wants to die for what it's done. The freaking conscience of the Cataclysm!" Zero just had to laugh, and it left him even more exhausted.

"You know how you tried to get me to promise, X. To kill you if you ever became a maverick. Please." When he calmed down, that was his solemn plea. "It hesitated to kill Rock, just a bit, and it didn't even know the guy. I've known you, been by your side for years, been your friend for years, or I would have been if I didn't know on whatever level that letting myself be your friend would be fucking you over… Whatever's left of what we've been through, those memories might give you an opening. God _damn_ I hope so. Use it. Don't be the one to hesitate, X. He who hesitates is lost. That's what Forte told Rock after he didn't kill Dr. Wily before Forte could get there to rescue him. Don't quote the Three Laws at me, X, they didn't work they way people think they do. 'Too late, Megaman: he who hesitates is lost. We shall return!' Even if you kill it, it will be back. Around six months. Use that time, X. Forte pretended to be a good guy for a bit, you know the stories, but Forte was Forte all along, that was why he told Rock that. Legends aside, he was… he was one of my, its, main targets, because he tried very hard to prevent humanity and the Light family getting wiped out… But that was because Bass was Forte, same personality even if he was acting. I'm not Omega. I was born from Dr. Cain's replacement system for the body and warped into, or… you're the one who gets how it works."

X was, and X was silent as Zero had told him to be, but Zero knew he was choking down something. "And I'm really just rambling now until I think of something, because if I'm not thinking of something to say I'll be listening, and be careful X. I'm slipping faster and there's not much more time I can buy for you, I'm almost used up. Almost nothing left... If Megaman hadn't hesitated, if he had just killed my… Dr. Wily then, none of this would have happened. The compulsions, really. They're acting a lot like a robot master's programming. I wish I had Blues' skill at finding loopholes, but at least their programming didn't evolve to block the paths they took to evolve around it. Forte had it _easy_." He sighed, and tried to continue. "I'm… you're the last thing I can hold onto, X. That's the compulsions. It's me, too, please believe me. Maybe I can believe myself then. If there ever was a me… You're Dr. Light's last legacy. You're its perfect enemy and you're a symbol. It's obsessed with you. Bait, something! Think of something, please. Because all I can do is tell you to fight me." On the last word his eyes opened, and that smile of anticipation was not Zero's.


	2. Of overthrow and pain

X had indeed done the smart thing and gotten ready, Omega was pleased to see. "All this won't mean anything if you don't do your best. You're your father's son, aren't you? Apologist, making excuses for everything they do." He flowed gracefully into a ready position, then considered his choice of weapon. "Modern piece of crap… Still, maybe melee has its advantages. It's more fun to give them a sporting chance, or to at least let them think they have one. Still, saying I share his weaknesses? I think I'll toss this." The beam saber went clattering into a corner. "And show you what I can really do. It's been too long already. Time to finish this."

Seeing X's slight grimace, he laughed. "What, hoping we'd have the same fighting style? Sorry to disappoint. He only picked up the beam saber because he admired Sigma. Or, to be precise, the facsimile of Sigma the virus posed as before revealing itself. It was so very devastating when he realized he'd 'killed' his personal hero in the moment of his 'rescue.'" Omega laughed, readying his buster. "Come on, then."

They still stood there for a few moments, studying the other, watching for openings, the slight change in readiness level or some other signal that would give them a clue to when the other would move and how. "Buying time: how very pointless," Omega murmured, and fired.

The fight quickly became dodge and counter-dodge, maneuvering. Omega noted that X was trying to get in close, possibly having gotten the impression Omega's disdain for melee meant he was relatively unskilled at it. "You think getting in close will help?"

X said nothing in response: good. A fight, Zero had dinned into his head, was not the time to hold a conversation. X should have gotten the hint, though. When he came in range (into Omega's parlor), the saber wasn't necessary, not with his secret weapon.

His hair moved, trapping X's limbs, and he laughed. "I know everything Zero does, and I have tricks of my own. Stop fighting like a rookie." He released X… and got the buster whose charge X had managed to hide fired right at his heart, where X knew Zero's main processor was. And something else.

He fell to his knees. "He was right, that fool was right, I should have just sliced you into scrap…" He looked up, grinning. "You won't be so lucky next time. I lost to my own damn overconfidence." Then his fusion containment failed, despite all the safety features. The safety measures that had been taken out so perfectly.

He shouldn't have underestimated X. He was, after all, a master of reploid design, although not android.

A pity the blast only singed the one who caused it.

Or perhaps not, as since Sigma had been expecting Omega to be the main event X ended up relatively undamaged, but still damaged enough to require medical care. "How are you, X?"

"Almost as good as new. How soon do you think I can get out there? The virus is still up there… I'm needed." So cute, so sad, so vulnerable in that bed.

"I think it would be better if you stayed here a little longer." He sat down on the bedside. "What with everything that's happened. A few more days won't make a difference." X seemed to have noticed something was off even before Omega added that, "Nothing will."

"Lifesaver?" X scooted back in the bed. He knew a maverick when one revealed themselves that clearly.

"Not at the moment. Although he's been a maverick since he was assigned this post. His help in pushing Zero over the edge is very much appreciated by the others. They were getting tired of waiting, and reminding Zero of me, making him think of it, and rubbing his nose in it accelerated my awakening. After all, he had to be kept from blowing our cover." Omega tapped a button and X found himself tied down. "Potential maverick restraints. Without your armor you haven't a prayer of breaking them. I really should kill you now." He touched X's head.

"Omega."

"You really can't do threatening. And you don't want me to see you as a threat. Threats get neutralized. Hissing kittens are just too cute." He pet X's hair a bit.

"I thought it would take you six months to come back."

"No, just six months to build me a decent body. You should know how it works by now, X," he chided him.

"You're insane."

"What brought that on? The fact I'm teasing you instead of killing you when I should know better by now?" Clearly the answer to that was yes. "I do have you at my mercy. But then, _when don't I_." That smile sent a very pretty shiver down X's spine. "Do you want me to kill you? You asked Zero to, you know."

Seeing the horror, he just had to reassure him that, "Oh, I'm not going to infect you. Not this time, anyway. It's going to take some time to design a virus that will get around your personality's strong areas, and in fact it might not be possible until I kill all the humans, infect everyone else, and you have no more reason to fight, no one left to save. I think I'll offer you a different choice right now."

"What?"

"Should I remove Lifesaver now that I've blown his cover or leave him here? Those are my two options, but your two options are: tell everyone about Lifesaver and know that whoever replaces him will just be a walking, talking, target for infection, or don't and know that the person taking care of everyone is _already_ a maverick. He never infected anyone: his entire role was to wake me up, but now? Well, now." Omega kept petting X. "You're so very cute when you're morally conflicted."

"Cute?" So creepy…

"Your eyes get all wide and you look so very helpless. Like a little lost kitten, and I just want to pick you up, take you home with me, and give you something to make it all better." He looked him up and down. "So very tempting… I'll wait until I have a body with systems that actually work. I want to _feel_ it when I take the last of your innocence."

X gasped in shock.

"Zero was in love with you. Did you know that? He worked very hard to keep you from finding out, so that you could be strong when you would need to be. And X?" he bent down to whisper in the ear that exposed itself as X tried to twist away from him. "I'm not Zero." He bit X's earlobe, just gently, and X banged his head against Omega's host's to force him to let go. "I think I'll just take this one with me, actually. If you were to decide to cover it up, then they wouldn't have any reason to look at the security tapes of our little chat."

Seeing X's blush, half shame and half rage, he laughed. "You're going to be mine eventually. You're far too cute to just let die. Everyone might as well get used to the idea." He stood up and stepped away from the bed, then put a finger to his current lips, considering. "No one can touch you but me, remember that. It wasn't Lifesaver that touched you, but if I give him back this body, even that's too much. I'll just build him a new one. See you, X. Sooner than you think." In fact, there was an undercover maverick among the many watching this right now, since X had sent an emergency signal before Omega had even made his suggestion to keep Lifesaver's nature a secret.

He'd had the doors in a sphere around this room locked down, emergency status, so X would think his signal for help hadn't been detected. He didn't unlock them after he self-destructed the medic right in front of X's horrified eyes. After blowing him a kiss.

They needed to think he wasn't aware of the emergency signal. If they knew he was, that gave them a very short list of potential mavericks: few were aware of that precaution, including Lifesaver himself.

X was given his armor and some hot chocolate, as he turned down anything stronger. "Omega's insane."

One of the fools started to say something and, shaking his head, X overrode them. "Obsessive. Irrational when it comes to those obsessions. I've been going over what Zero said. If the century of hibernation is the sole reason I'm immune and he had that time, he should be immune. Zero said it wasn't a matter of fighting the virus, it was fighting himself. No, the theory that he is Dr. Cain's creation is incorrect and he knew it, it was something to hold onto, please just let me finish." That was said to shut down another useless interruption.

"A newbuilt android, therefore, would _not_ be immune. If Omega was a maverick during the cataclysm, then went into hibernation, acquired immunity, and woke up with that much guilt, the desire to destroy the self that did that could very well, in a reploid or android, cause the self-destruction of the personality, resulting in the animalistic 'red demon' irregular of the rampage. Dr. Cain wanted to find out who had built the irregular, so he tried to install replacement systems several times. Every single time we just ended up with another animal, and very fast. Zero's OS was installed after we'd given up and done a memory wipe. These were not separate personalities, these were attempts to replace what we thought at the time were faulty systems. They weren't faulty: it was the memories at fault, not some bug. We just thought it was 'just' the trauma of the rampage. That would have been more than enough to reduce a newbuilt to that state, and Zero was not that unique a case aside from the death toll."

He took a deep drink. "You can install new nanites and new processors in us until doomsday, but as long as something remains we will get our bodies back. That's why I was built. Without those memories or the virus, Zero's personality was therefore the 'real' personality, who Omega would have been without the virus. However, memory forms a basis for behavior patterns. As Zero's memories began to be triggered by what looks like a deliberate effort from the mavericks, Zero had to suppress them or else the guilt would, in fact, have driven him insane yet again and 'unleashed' Omega, who can be referred to as 'Maverick Zero.' While Omega is immune to the virus per se, just like Zero, it was a maverick and contains the behavior patterns to the extent that immunity is irrelevant. Or, it would be _if_ Omega were stable. In our first interaction, it underestimated me but, well, I've seen worse. This time, he appeared to be motivated almost entirely by his obsessions. Irrational and becoming more irrational. I think unless some other factor intervenes we'll be dealing with the 'red demon' very, very soon. That much decay in just a few hours? And this sort of decay is almost always exponential."

As the others started to get their hopes up, X dashed them. "The red demon was not genocidal but just plain homicidal. It killed everything that moved and didn't care how much attention it attracted: it wanted people to come fight it. While a non-intelligent enemy is good, one that will kill everything instead of just humans is not an improvement. Sigma exercised_ some_ restraint, he didn't do random massacres. An irrational opponent is unpredictable…" He shook his head. "If he weren't immune the virus would be making him, like Sigma, not feel any guilt. The fact he's cracking like this is evidence of immunity." He took another drink, centering himself on the action.

"If we can pull off a trap," he managed after bracing himself with that. "It's entirely possible I could repeat what I and Dr. Cain did before: erase every memory I can find, install replacement nanites, and produce another 'Zero,' although one who wouldn't remember being Zero anymore than being a maverick. Given the control Omega demonstrates over the virus, it's possible that he could destroy it. The problem is, are the memories of how to do so too closely related to the memories of all the deaths for a 'new' personality to access them without going insane the way Zero did? If there had been any possible way for him to destroy the virus, Zero would have tried. It's possible that either there is no way _period_ or accessing those memories can't be done without the horror driving him into the refuge of insanity. But it might be a chance."

"Clever X," Omega murmured, in the body he was borrowing on the other side of the planet.

"What Zero described as the strings, the compulsions, I'm not so sure about. He made them sound like programming. It's entirely possible that they're the remainders of 'paths' the virus carved into his mind while he was a maverick. He should be able to delete them, the problem is will awareness of them drive him insane enough he can't do it? What he talked about, believing that what 'it' wanted was right? That the virus could be used to end the wars, to not have to die, to keep me safe? Most people… have an easier time with having done horrible things if they were done in a good cause. If Zero had let himself believe that what the virus wanted was good, was right, he probably wouldn't have gone insane. That kind of guilt… and he mentioned that Dr. Wily had what he, at least, believed to have been a legitimate grievance and the belief that the virus was the only way to bring about something, or end some injustice, probably related to… ancient history." Not relevant, even though this was his family under discussion. "He had an excuse to believe that he was a good guy, like the mavericks do, instead of a horrible murderer. If he'd taken it, he'd still be sane. Even Omega doesn't believe Omega is doing the right thing." X finished his mug then, and another one was brought, with extra marshmallows.

"Also, the fact that Zero did genuinely come to care about me made that path seem like it should be there until it was too late. His desire to atone made that other path also seem like something that should be there. If you'd told him to stop caring about me, or to stop helping the hunters? Can you see Zero deleting those personality traits and priorities? So very fundamental, and they were distorted like this… Or were they? When he lost it was when he wanted me to fight it: it wanted to fight me too. Not just fight. Kill. Zero is… He was right when he said he was the conscience, the… he wanted to die, to make the memories stop and to not hurt anyone else. I think Omega does too or he wouldn't be demonstrating such a death wish. Giving away the capability of possession and losing a spy in such a key position in order to hit on me? If Zero is still in there, well, he'd be screaming, but if he weren't he'd be headdesking. He taught me better than that."

"Another good point," Omega had to admit, somewhere else X couldn't hear.

"I asked Zero to promise me once, at the end of the last war, that he would kill me if I ever become a maverick. He couldn't say it, in retrospect he couldn't afford to think about it. He wants me to give him the same mercy that I wanted him to give me." X nodded deeply. No, his head was bowed, eyes closed in mourning. "I won't fail him," he promised when he straightened, opened his eyes. "We'll win. I won't let all the time he bought us have been for nothing."

"So what do we do?"

"Wait for openings, really. But we would need 'his' body for the OS replacement plan, so that would involve waiting six months. Let's see if we can come up with something that will work faster." X couldn't help glancing up: the roof was opaque currently but they all knew of the unbroken clouds of virus that were up there, locking away the light their hearts, and the world's human-supporting ecosystem, needed. "He… if I'm right, he's going to give us openings. Zero's traits, Zero's soul. Zero dedicated himself to the hunters and to me, I suppose. He wants to die, we're the ones who can do it, and as he loses his sanity he's going to just get more obsessed with death, the hunters as the means to it, and me. He might as well be daring me to kill him." That sip was more marshmallow than cocoa. "You heard what he said on the tape. 'Zero loved you, I'm not Zero, I'm the one that killed him.' Trying to provoke me into killing him, that's how he's expressing the fact he… would love me if he were sane."

"Yes," he murmured, crushing the skull of someone he'd been interrogating and tossing the body aside, bored with their begging now, wanting it over.

"The kitten stuff… he can't see me as an enemy. He wants to look after me, keep me safe. Even the, the rape part. No one touches me but him. No one harms me or makes me uncomfortable but him. And notice that even though he could have, he very well could have, he didn't… do anything. Just innuendo, really. So, if no one's harming me but him by his order and he's not harming me either he's protecting me. He'd kill anyone who hurt me, even a little bit. That's what's there under the insanity. Under what the virus carved into his mind while he was a maverick, before he became immune. Written on the pieces of the mind his trauma shattered." X had to take a very deep draught now, and his eyes lingered in the mug.

Omega recognized it too. Zero had gotten it for him ages ago, it was a personalized thing celebrating X's completion of training and graduation to full field hunter status. Normally they had plaques and diplomas for that sort of thing, but Zero had despised useless clutter. Training wasn't useless, a random piece of wood or paper was. Something like that would get hung up on a wall somewhere, but this was something X would actually use, like he would hopefully make use of the knowledge and skills Zero had gone to so much trouble to get into that stubborn head of his.

"I don't think he's going to kill me. The first time he knew how bad it was to hesitate, that he should finish me off, and yet when it came down to it he still acted like Zero. Like it was a training session. I was, well, I was counting on that, really. He gave me advice, a hint that getting close was a bad idea, so I thought that if I did it while he was still in that mode… he lost because of _Zero's habits_. And when it ended he knew what a mistake he'd made, but this time he didn't even make a token effort to kill me. He knows what a bad idea it is, and yet he's still leaving me alive. That's a sign both that he's irrational and getting worse, and that he doesn't want me dead. He doesn't want to win. He's… letting the virus' habits control him, or he was during the initial fight, because with his mind shattered like that there's… What he's done, it must be so very horrible to remember. So he's not remembering, he's not thinking." X's hands curled around the mug to protect it and what it represented. "Zero's dead, or dying and despairing, and the strings are just jerking what's left of him around. He wants to die, to atone, he wants me to kill him. But Zero thought I couldn't kill him, that there just wasn't any way to."

He raised his eyes from the mug to meet those of his audience. With a calm strength only tempered by sadness, he told them that, "Since he wants it over with, Omega's definitely going to be helping the mavericks."


	3. That we, in spite of being broken,

Hearing the gasps, seeing the reactions, X continued, nodding solemnly to confirm that this terrible thing was true. "He wants it over. If I can't kill him, if the virus can't be stopped, then the mavericks winning is the only other way for it to be over. What Zero said, when he was fighting it off? About the people on the communications channel? Once everyone's maverick, they won't have to fight and kill anymore. They won't have any guilt, they'll think it wasn't evil since it was for a good cause, the lie that Omega won't take refuge in. If I can't kill him, he just promised me that I wouldn't mourn. Think about it. Dr. Wily had some sort of cause that even Zero thought was valid, although not the means. If there's no other end, if we can't end it, then that becomes the only end to all this torture Omega can see."

"Very clever, kitten." He smiled lovingly at him from a stolen face.

That hand signal, X ordering them to not move, not end this conversation, not make Omega leave when we could get valuable information: Omega was impressed. "You've really grown up."

"Thanks to Zero, I think."

"He really did groom you to kill me, didn't he? Even before he remembered anything."

"Am I right?"

"Very right. I didn't realize most of that about myself until I heard you say it." The recently-tested for the virus second in command of Unit 17 put the marshmallows down on the table by X.

"That's the thing about irrationality." X tilted his head, examining him. "You're acting saner."

"You cleared up a few things. Don't worry, it won't last." He ended up claiming the space on the couch that had always been Zero's: X had sat to the right side by habit even though no one else had been on the couch with him. "Do you realize that you are the central… besides my father and humanity. The only good… don't die. If you do, than there really will… this entire group of galaxies will become your funeral pyre. More, if it takes that long for them to find someone that can kill me."

"Them?"

"The aliens. Duo and so on. He was here to find the… irrelevant. If you die, then I don't care anymore about Elysium, my father's dream, our… your kind, anything. If you die, then I will kill until they find _someone_ that can avenge you, but first I'll slaughter this entire world for failing you. But if I can give you Elysium, then… It will be beautiful, X. Not worth it, nothing would be. But to do so much for nothing… And if it were done then I could forget. I could sleep, at least."

"I'll find a way to kill you," X promised. "Couldn't you wait?" They both knew the answer.

"X, that's why Zero died. He couldn't stand it anymore. If I could wait, if I had any sanity left to buy you time with, I would still be Zero." He patted X on the shoulder. "I'll give you this one back. I only took him over temporarily because he was the only one here who knew where the marshmallows you liked were. The one I was watching you through didn't know, and it might have broken their cover to tell them that, so I influenced this one to give him the idea, then I wanted a mouthpiece… He'll be fine when I leave. Won't you be glad when I go back deeper into madness and start making stupid mistakes again?" That was a rhetorical question.

Yet X gave the opposite answer. "No, I won't. If you were sane, then we could negotiate."

"If I were sane I would be Zero. Forget negotiating: he was always and ever on your side." So very sad. "I…" There was nothing he could say, he didn't have a right to it and it might harm X's resolve.

"I know. I'll find a way."

"I would kiss you, but I already said I would give you this one back…" Still, X was here, and so very kind, and… "I'd better go." He triggered the vessel to fall unconscious an instant before deleting the virus. Theatrics made everything so much easier.

X caught him, as expected. "He's that hard to kill? And he still thinks I can do it? Or is it just that he needs a hope?"

When the vice-commander rebooted he was fussed over by X and various doctors (heh) to see if he remembered anything. He'd thought the marshmallows were his own idea and as far as he knew he'd blacked out. He glanced at X as he reassured the hunter through borrowed eyes.

And the war raged: he made himself drunk on blood so he didn't have to think, whirled X around in the light of a burning refuge and laughed, kissed him on the cheek and told him, "It'll be over soon, so hurry," in a voice half-teasing half-despairing before tossing that body into the fire an instant before triggering its destruction.

It was growing harder for him to conceal himself when he took over a body, that glow marking his presence, marking his nature. That black-purple wrongness that wavered and shivered at X's touch.

When X noticed that it was a sign of him instead of just a particularity of the bodies, Omega explained that, "It's what I am, X. The virus isn't the only source of my insanity. I was made of darkness and evil, and in the end I can't fight my own nature. End it for me?"

"I will."

"I'll give myself to you," he promised impulsively, although X seemed to have expected it. "But that won't make much difference. There are others, saner others, others who think this is right. With or without my help, if you don't kill me they'll win, X. You don't know how many are waiting, how many I've taken just to _see you_. If you can't succeed, at some point someone will activate them, at some point they'll move."

"It will be over soon," X promised. "One way or another." He smiled sadly and tucked Iris' hair behind the ear that wasn't hers right at the moment.

"I love you," she, he, it said.

"Could you give Iris her new body back? I'm not jealous of her and you."

"X, X, that means one more maverick for this assault, and I don't want Iris to be here even though she's all for it now. I know, I know, you truly have no idea. I'm inside this horror, I am this horror. I'm doing this to her." It kissed X on the cheek. "Kill me," the voice of the woman Zero had once loved whispered in X's ear, before darting back, throwing itself off the edge of a building.

No matter how many bodies it died in it could never stay dead.

It hated the ones who had that luxury, and it made them scream for as long as it could before it got sick of it and ended it.

At last it was done.

He had been wildly planning some sort of grand thing but in the very instant he could he just teleported into X's bedroom (where he was fully clothed, doing research that contained nothing useful Omega could see, disappointingly enough) and put his hands over X's eyes. "Guess who?"

"You," X said, and that was right, since he was nothing but what he was. Not Zero the hunter or Omega the maverick. Nothing.

He walked to the front of the chair X sat on and knelt, placing his head in X's lap. X let him, X who was far too kind. "If you can't kill me, then could you give me to someone who will hurt me?" X would never hurt him, sadly.

"I think you've been hurt more than enough. If it would do any good it already would have." X pet his hair and he shivered with indescribable emotions, too many of them, they tore him apart.

"Where I touch you the glow goes away for a bit. Does that mean something?" His hair was in a ponytail, Zero's never-varied look, although he had come unarmored. No weapons, either.

"I don't know. It's nice, though, and no one else causes it. Rock did for a moment, but the virus was more than enough to make me kill him. Maybe that was why Duo told him, 'with your help, this planet will survive,' but I killed him anyway."

"The planet's still here." X kept petting him, dangerous animal that he still was so very kind to.

He nodded slightly, head shifting in X's lap. "Hasn't been devoured. That's odd, given how humanity is. If it hadn't gotten turned into something that affected androids, if it wasn't me and it was possessing them it would have been over decades ago. I know that much."

"Possessing them?"

"Humanity's a near-ideal host species. Reploids it has to work at, and linking it to the virus made it incompatible."

"Why does it want to kill them, then?"

"It doesn't, the virus does. Dr. Wily wanted humanity destroyed. It just wants everything destroyed."

"Including itself?"

"I don't think so. But I want myself destroyed, X. I hate being its and the virus' queen. Forget pawn… I can't stand it anymore."

"If this body is destroyed do we have to wait another six months?"

"I made spares." He smiled. It was good that X was thinking of the practical considerations of trying to do it now, finally.

"That's good." X's hands ranged to his shoulders now, sometimes returning to soothe places where the glow had returned.

They should be working on finding something, but if this was what X wanted he would gladly stay. He didn't ask if they were doing this because X didn't have any idea how and wanted to give him some kindness. He didn't want to lose what hope he had. Hear a definite no.

"You said that Rock soothed it?" was X's next question.

"It was quieter near him, and when he got some in him before I was made it was killing him but not doing anything else. So Duo took it out of him, but otherwise it would have killed him and been taken with him into death…" he trailed off.

X dug fingers into his deadly hair. "Do you think that would work?"

"Not like that, I'm not raw energy. But there's something… you're key, you're everything, I've always known that no matter what I didn't know." Longingly, he tilted his head a bit to kiss one of X's thighs. "You are the only chance I have for salvation."

"If touch quiets it, could it put it to sleep? Could you think clearly enough to get rid of the virus then?"

"Brilliant child of light… I don't deserve your touch, but I have always craved it. Yet… if I destroy the virus and don't die, then," then I'll have to live with this, and so will all of them.

"But it would let you be saner? It would make you hurt less?"

"Sane?" He laughed. "X, it's almost impossible to think about anything but you and the guilt as it is."

"I'm the only safe place your mind has." X tugged at him, come up, let me hug you, and he obeyed, bracing himself against one of the armrests and leaning at an angle so he could tuck his head against X's neck. X who didn't shiver and pull away. X who embraced the monster that he was.

Brave X. "Yes, even though I've done so much to hurt you."

"Nowhere near as much as you've been hurt, and most of it wasn't your choice. You can't be blamed for the virus, or how you were made, or insanity. You know that, Zero."

He shivered. "Don't call me that, please."

"You'll always be Zero to me."

"I want, he's dead! He never hurt you, he's dead! Don't… Don't tarnish his memory like that."

"You want some of yourself to remain pure in my heart?"

He nodded, shyly, ashamed.

"I don't hate you, Zero."

He shivered, pressing against him tighter while strong hands caressed his back. "Love you. Love you love you love you." So desperate, so starving.

"I love you too," X said calmly, truly. Zero shivered again. He wanted to crawl inside him, curl up there, sheltered within his heart. Like a human baby or something, how weak but then he was that weak. Broken shattered mad evil thing.

"If you, if you… I don't know what." He nuzzled him again. "I know you can save me. If, if you make the screaming stop I can maybe delete the virus, for now, but if I don't die and I go mad again it will just come back, so there's not much point."

"Except buying time," X corrected him.

Zero whimpered.

"I know," and X did. "I want it to be over too."

X squeezed him, kissed Zero's forehead and when the screaming quieted at the touch of lips Zero knew. "Devour me," he whispered softly, smiling.

"Devour?"

"You can contain me. Then you'll control the virus, along with me, and you can order me to heal their minds, erase the memories too. I can't do that on my own, I could delete it but they'd want it back. I can't heal when I'm broken. You'd heal me. So warm, so kind. I could sleep, X, I could sleep and not be woken up to this nightmare, and when you died I'd die with you."

"How?"

"I don't know." He still smiled. "There is a way, though, I know there is." He raised a hand that only trembled a little to X's lips. "Destroy this self. Make me exist for you and you alone. That's part of it."

"Zero, I just got you back." X took that hand in one of his own, kissed it.

"It was your plan, X. You're the one who knows me so much better than I do."

"But if you don't remember, you won't be able to tell me anything else that I might need to know."

"But if I don't remember then it will be easier for you to control me. You won't have to fight the screaming if it's locked away. And Sigma's reviving too. Another war's going to start soon. If I'm mad, then you'll end up having to fight both of us."

"You're not very mad right now."

"That's because you're holding me. I'm a bit… contained. But if you're upset, if you're not with me, if you're… the wars and your pain eroded Zero faster than anything. I'm not cured, X. Just calmed a bit."

"Alright." X squeezed him again. "When do you think…?"

"Now?" Zero asked plaintively.

"How should I treat the new you?" X nuzzled his cheek a bit.

"No reminders. There's so much… with all the virus. It might not take that much to make me start to wake up. No one but you. No hate, if I see hate then I will _know _that I should be hated and start to break. There's, there's so much, X. If I… Be my world, be my god. There's more than that, but if I can be made, made as pure as possible and you hold me, then I might be whole enough to repair the virus. It might take several times to get all of it. When I can't do anymore erase me again and maybe wait a day before asking the new me. I… my will isn't trustworthy, X. Show each me, or remind them, that yours is. I have faith in you, that will hopefully keep me from breaking before anything gets done."

"Turn you into newbuilts, carefully keep them innocent, and then suddenly traumatize them enough to drive them insane again and again?" X sighed. "You really do think you deserve to be tortured."

"I do." Honest, obvious truth.


	4. Because of being broken,

"You've already been tortured. It hasn't fixed anything." X held him. "Kindness seems to be."

"Being with you helps me think of you and only you."

"Zero." Poor Zero. X kissed him gently.

Zero's reaction amazed him, he'd known he'd lusted after X but the fact that basking in X's presence, in his kindness felt so good had made him start to think that the lust was just his real desire being tainted. It wasn't. That light caress made him moan, follow X's lips with his own desperately when the brief kiss was meant to have finished, caused his systems to crash-transition to sexual mode with a hunger that made it harder to think than the hunger for blood and pain had. It was so obvious that X couldn't miss it, especially since the fact their bodies were separated only by cloth made the tingling of transmitter sites eager to stimulate his systems something his own body couldn't ignore.

Zero bowed his head, hiding it shamefully against X's chest and trying not to pant. "Sorry, sorry, that's, I've never felt like this before, didn't know it would happen, I swear, it's not…" He trembled, trying to contain the need.

Even X was a little flushed, his own systems having transitioned (which was what Zero was really apologizing about). "It's okay, Zero. It's not rape if I love you too, if I want you to. Don't worry. I wouldn't let you do something like that to me."

"But I said…"

"You could use some innocence. You know I love you, Zero. You love me. So, then. It's called lovemaking for a reason." X smiled a bit and kissed him again.

Oh, yes yes yes! When X pulled back Zero licked his lips to taste the residue. "You're remaking me," he murmured. "I didn't become the red demon all the way because of you. I'm the one that was supposed to shape you and you can still make me melt and meld back together. Was that why you just called me 'you' at first? If you'd said Zero then it would have been wrong, but now I think that I might, I might be worthy of the name soon. That I'm wounded Zero instead of the monster that took his place. You called me Zero, and the shattered pieces wanted so much to be Zero for you then and still do."

"I don't know if you noticed since you were so far gone, but you were glowing then. The more you slipped, the more you glowed. Maybe it was the energy that was waking up, not, well, I know it wasn't the real you." X looked thoughtful as he said this, and finally tried nipping gently at Zero's earlobe, as Omega had done to him. "Oh, I was right! That is something you like." He smiled. "You do like it. If you're happy it doesn't have an opening, I think. So, if I make sure that you are happy and know that I love you, then we'll see how things are. It might take some time for it to sink in." X was prepared to spend a lot of quality time with Zero.

"You came to find me sometimes. Did things that didn't make strategic sense for you to do."

"Seeing me seemed to wake you up a bit. If just a minute with you made that much difference, and it did, there were fewer deaths for awhile after each time I found you, then I hoped that when you came and stayed it would bring you back."

The deaths. Zero's eyes widened and X almost tackled him, somehow ending up with Zero pressed between him and the back of the chair. Those weapon/armorless self-defense courses hadn't been a waste of time after all, Zero thought dazedly as the kiss ignited that hunger again. "I'm sorry," and X truly was. "I shouldn't have reminded you of things you couldn't help."

Normally, Zero would have argued with that, but the kiss and the emotion behind it seemed to have fried his metaphorical neurons. "It's okay," he replied distractedly, giving the polite assurance without being quite sure what exactly he was reassuring X of. It couldn't be anything important, X wouldn't do anything bad.

"Did Dr. Light put some sort of evil energy counter-system in Megaman and I?" X's eyebrows rose. "Just… Wow, Zero. I can't be that good a kisser, I haven't done it before for real."

"There aren't counter-systems: there are counter-people and not many of them. Luckily entities on my level are equally rare…" He nuzzled X, not truly caring about anything but him at the moment.

"Hmm," X made a little noise of acknowledgement, but that wasn't really the issue now: something had occurred to him. "The pain is the real problem, isn't it?"

Zero tilted his head, not understanding but wanting to listen to X.

"You remember, and you think you deserve pain even though it was the virus' fault, not yours. So you torture yourself, you break yourself, you want to _execute_ yourself as the only justice you can give them." Poor Zero, who X did his best to keep soothed. "But, if you do that to yourself then you can't fix anything. Killing yet another innocent victim is not justice. Two wrongs don't make a right, Zero. If you destroy yourself then you'll just wake up to find your curses did yet more wrong while you were too broken to fight them. You're trying to destroy them, and you can't as long as you think they are you. You're aiming your buster at yourself instead of the enemy, Zero, and you're shooting your own foot off. Your very attempts to atone are letting it use you. Zero, listen to me," and he was, almost hypnotized by the kindness. "You need to stop hurting yourself. If you're half-dead, who will fight the virus? If you want to atone, and the only mistake you ever made was not realizing what the real problem was and taking the blame for everything yourself, then isn't the only way to do it to make everyone _stop_ hurting? To fix the mistake? To let go of the pain? Because until you do you, and everyone, will just keep hurting. Zero, I know I've never been able to get you to do this, but you need to _stop feeling guilty_."

Zero opened his mouth, certain that X was wrong, but he couldn't find a single thing there that he could contradict. X sighed. "If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, Zero." He pet him a bit, since that seemed to help. "If you weren't such a good person this would be easier, wouldn't it? You can't stop mourning all of them, can you? You can't stop caring about them and wanting to do something for them. You can't bring them back, Zero. It wasn't your fault, you were a newbuilt baby and you can't change history, but you can undo what the virus has done to the present. You can beat it, Zero. You can get revenge on the real enemy. You can execute the true killer. You just need to stop hurting yourself and start hurting the thing that hurt you, that killed all those people. And isn't the best revenge living well? Don't hurt for their sakes, Zero. Be free and happy, help their children live free and happy. Wouldn't that be the utter defeat of the virus that wanted to destroy and enslave?"

It sounded right, he wanted to believe it, but he didn't deserve to. Not when he'd killed all those people, only it hadn't been him, but they'd still died and he hadn't been able to save them. "You think you deserve to suffer for failing to prevent their deaths, even if it was the virus that killed them? For goodness' sake, Zero, you know better than that, you know how the virus works. You didn't have a chance."

"You know me so well, huh." The interaction of the cravings of his body's sexual system for X's touch, his heart's hunger for X's kind words, and his… spirit's desire to bask in his presence and attention felt very, very odd. He'd seen a video once, of a snake and a snake charmer.

"Zero, you said you wanted to trust my judgment over your own, right? Stop wasting time guilt-tripping and start working on becoming stable enough to get rid of the virus." X tapped him on the nose to make the point. "Really, this is all obvious stuff I'm telling you. I think you just weren't listening to your own logic processor because you were afraid that it was biased when it said you shouldn't feel guilty since your heart felt you should be very guilty. So yes, I'm casting my vote. You're not an evil person, Zero. Quite the opposite, actually. You have a very good idea of what evil is and you've spent your entire existence-as-you fighting it. And you said_ I_ was a white knight tilting at windmills. You hate evil, you just need to adjust your aim."

"I'm… I'm not stable, X. I don't know if I ever will be. But you are. You're strong enough the virus can't touch you, you're, you're everything good, you're… I can't trust myself, X. Tell me what to do. I trust you. I, you're right, I destroyed myself fighting to protect you. I would do anything for you, and I feel like if it was for you I could do anything." His hands went up to hold X's head in place. Look at me, watch over me, don't leave me alone with this, I love you please. "I was built as a weapon, a tool to be used by the virus to wipe out the human race and control our kind. I… tell me what to do. Let me be your sword, your knight."

X nodded, understanding. "For now. Until you can trust your own judgment again."

"X… if I were just an android, I could rewrite myself sane eventually, once I stopped tearing my mind apart again every time I managed to patch over the previous damage. I'm not just an android. Even without memories, if you weren't watching over me…" Zero shivered a bit. "You may be right that the Cataclysm wasn't my fault, but the reason I… I have such a hard time thinking that I'm innocent is that I feel evil. I should be, really. Maybe it's the hibernation again. It strengthens selves, so… I have to watch myself, X. And I really can't tell very well, huh. I need you to watch for me. Because Omega is what happens if my mind goes catatonic and I act on instinct. That is my instinct, I was fighting it all the time I was Zero. That was why I didn't accept that the red demon wasn't me. It felt like I could do those things and laugh, X, and it made me sick. So I knew what they said, that I was a monster, was true. Because I am. Humanity's only demi-compatible and they'd still wipe them out to avoid them getting the kind of power I have, the… I want to destroy, X. I'm a weapon, after all. That was why this made the perfect weapon. It's just a matter of where I'm pointed, because eventually I will slip, the safety will come off. If I was hurting myself, I wasn't hurting anyone else. I let me hurt myself, and mavericks. Only those, I tried, but Iris…"

X held him as he shivered and forced himself to keep talking. "I don't want to hurt you. You make those instincts go dormant. So keep me focused on you, tell me what's okay to fight and how and what isn't. Otherwise, X, I'm a loose thermonuke, I really am. Forget loose nuke, I'm a loose _bioweapon_." The virus definitely qualified, but he wasn't talking about the virus. "Evil energy was only the For Dummies version, but it's pretty decent. Evil, well, that word stands on its own. And energy is potential energy, there to be used. That which provides the power for evil actions, that which fuels evil… The virus is evil. Oh god, that, what that felt like. Oh god, X!" He ferverntly embraced him, was held and caressed so kindly, gently like he was something precious until the fear settled. "Fear, fear is of the dark side. Arrogance, little petty things like April Fools' pranks, anger, pain, if I let myself… If I let a seed take root and don't force it out I'll end up with a jungle, because this will make things like that grow like weeds."

"You had to watch yourself so carefully, you had to fight so hard to stay good." X thought this was something praiseworthy instead of monstrous?

"You, you make all of that go away. I feel sane, I feel like a _person_ instead of a tiger in sheep's clothing trying so hard not to eat them."

"Do you love me as much as all that, or do you love not having to work to be a good person? Well, not having to work any harder than the rest of us do anyway. That's a ton of work but when you're used to several million tons that probably does seem like nothing at all."

"I thought it was love, but now I don't know. I need you, X. I crave you. I'm dead without you, the person I try to be is dead and all that's left is a monster. Being with you, your kindness, your love, it feels so wonderful, like I'm free, but I'm only free if I'm yours. I want this to be love I'm feeling instead of just need, I don't want to just be using you. Don't feel like you have to love me. Caring, I need you to care, but friendship is enough. Or a pet, really. You don't give orders to friends unless it's something like 'duck!'"

"Love me, worship me, and I will be your slave," X quoted, and Zero had no idea from where.

"I'm, I'd be taking up a lot of your time, and just… I'd feel like a jerk if I didn't repay you. I need you to control me, and that's going to be a burden, so I should at least be useful."

"I think you're underestimating yourself because of how much you've been fighting against. Normal people don't go insane like you did. Normal people stay under the control of the virus, normal entities probably go on rampages from day one without any virus and stay on those rampages. You're bearing an incredible burden, Zero. Reduce that burden, and maybe you'll start to realize what a wonderful person you are."

"X," he whispered, and that was all he could say. That summed it up. Perfect X, kind X, that sort of description would have been redundant.

"I think you do love me." Such a relieved smile, a proud smile. "Let's see if we can get you to need me less so that isn't distorting it. Also, this needs to sink in more. You're still so desperate: you don't need to be. I love you, Zero, for better or worse. You don't need to chase after me. I was the one that chased you down while you were gone, remember? I won't leave you alone with this." He stroked his cheek. "They're probably panicking outside, I should have reported for work already. Hmm. I don't want you to strain yourself, Zero. Pushing too hard just makes it take longer before you recover and can go back on duty, that's another thing I kept telling you over and over. Still, if you did something now, that would be a good start, I think. Begin as you mean to go on. That would hopefully prove to you that yes, you can get better, we can fix this."

A little fear in Zero's eyes. When he checked to see what he could do he had become aware of how broken the depths that X's light hadn't reached yet still were.

"Whatever you were thinking of, Zero, I don't mean that. Something little. You always rush into things, want to fix everything at once. It's a very huge problem, of course it's going to be hard to solve all at once. If it were possible to do it that easily you wouldn't have needed me!" Silly Zero. "Hmm. I think the hard things are going to be the things that involve pain. Oh! I thought of something. I think you can do it, and it would make everyone, including you, feel better." X smiled happily, and it even infected Zero a bit.

"What?"

"The sky." The sky that was still shrouded by virus, still cast a shadow over the land, an ever-present reminder and a very real threat to any reploid that went outdoors. It seemed like it should be a mammoth undertaking.

Yet the idea didn't make his heart clench, it even brought a smile to his lips, a tentative one, a few faint stirrings of something he recognized as hope. To cure a maverick would involve seeing the damage he, no, the virus had done, would bring him sympathetic agony. The sky, to make it blue again, for X? Reaching out to control the virus made him wince, but seeing X's face light up made that seem like nothing at all.

"You did it!" X kissed him, overjoyed.

"How did you know I had?"

"I could see your burden get a bit lighter."

"I, I could do it. For you." Everything always and ever for you.

"You've tensed up." X set about remedying that. "It was an effort, I could see that too. You're very brave. Calm down now, just relax. No more for a bit. No straining yourself," he admonished Zero sternly. "If you push too hard and break, that's not going to help anyone any more than breaking yourself did." X tugged him up. "If we were human we would have been so uncomfortable like that. I wish I'd been on the couch instead of in the armchair…" Zero was tugged over to the bed. "At least it was a big comfy armchair. Get under the covers, I'm going to raid Achilles' box. He's making everyone quilts this year, and I know he's finished at least a dozen that haven't been given out yet."

X, as a commander and with his celebrity status, had what was easily the largest suite on base, although people tried to keep him unaware of this. He and Zero both knew, of course, but X wasn't objecting because it was a gift and on-base storage space was hard to find. He used the living room/kitchen as a place people could drop into, the bedroom/comfy reading nook, the crammed with files office, and the quite nice bathroom. The rest was filled with the stuff other people didn't have space for, meaning he had two fewer rooms for 'himself' than the average commander.

The chatter as X found those and then went for some cookies he'd made last night to put out in the living room for whoever wanted them combined with the sensation of being in X's bed, covered in blankets that bore traces of his scent kept Zero calm even though he wasn't in X's arms.

The warm metal scent, the slight trace of ozone produced by their electricity: those were common to all reploids, but his unique construction made X distinctive. They weren't quite sure how exactly to get some of those alloys strong enough to be usable. Alloying wasn't just a matter of tossing everything in a pot and melting it at his components' level of complexity.

It wasn't just that. The shampoo was blueberry-scented, he confirmed as he nuzzled a pillow to feel closer to X. People tended to give X blue-themed things, and well, they were gifts. He must have been baking right before going to bed, the fresh-cookie scent had clung to him and settled into the sheets. Paperwork, of course, or the secure document faux-paper at least. Real paper from books.

Stress.

X tried to hide his worrying so as not to worry others, but the amount of repair nanites left behind here, the amount of 'reploid body order' (he must have tossed and turned, he must have been thinking so very hard) indicated a very high level of alertness, of tension. Well, for X. This was probably lower than most hunters, but X had the sort of calm that usually came with years of meditation practice. Calmness, hope, faith, inner certainty? Stability? He knew exactly who he was. He might not be sure how to deal with others and the world, but the century of hibernation as his systems had improved themselves far beyond the minimum might as well have been spent meditating on a mountaintop, away from the cares and woes of the world and innocent of them.

Sometimes X really did seem like an angel. The world he'd spent the vast majority of his life in was not this wretched one and he was too pure to be an inhabitant of it.


	5. May rise and build anew

The scent didn't make Zero feel bad, although maybe it should have. X worried because he cared. These traces were proof that he cared.

The fourteen quilts (Achilles had been working fast, X remarked) were put on top of him the weight comforting even though cloth wasn't armor, the cookie & so on platter on the bedside counter, and then X joined him.

He was a bit surprised. "Aren't you going to go report?"

"Why would I? Well, yes, they're worried, but they'll live. You just came out of a coma and are still in delicate health. You didn't think I was setting all this up so you'd be okay if I left you, did you? I'm sorry, I shouldn't have worried you." A cookie was held to his lips as another form of apology.

Zero took a bite out of it, blushing a bit at being fed. "I could stay here until you got back, or you could make a call."

"Could, yes. You're very strong. Should, no. I probably don't want to know the current infection rate, and don't you even_ think_ about it, and since they went to so much trouble with Lifesaver to drive you over the edge the mavericks are going to be trying even harder to make you break down now that you actually know how to fight them. What kind of doctor would I be if I let a recovering patient be exposed to risk of a secondary infection? Also, this is positive reinforcement. You don't seem to realize how good you just did." Another cookie. "I'm very proud of you. This is something worth celebrating, so we will. If I went rushing off after you did something for me and abandoned you, you'd think that I only cared about you for what you could do for me. That's just not right, I'm not going to hurt your feelings like that."

"I wouldn't think that of you!"

"Your feelings aren't fully under your rational control right now, so I'm not risking it. Drink?"

It was…

He hated this stuff, even X hated it, there probably wasn't anyone that didn't hate it. It might be healthy for reploids but it would kill a human and their tastebuds had been designed with human food in mind. Zero's self-loathing had translated into hatred of anything useless, anything meant to be enjoyed. He didn't deserve to enjoy life. But X wanted to have something for him to drink, be a good host, do something for Zero, and so this was the top of the line. Zero would drink it because it was healthy and masochistic even though the fact X went to so much trouble to find something for him made him feel warm and he didn't deserve that.

Now that he realized why he had been doing that he felt like a jerk for making X go to so much trouble, so stupid. He hoped that his look of distaste hadn't made X think the gift was rejected as so many other drinks had been until he'd found this.

X was smiling, though, and put it back on the tray and gave him a mug of hot chocolate. He must have figured out that Zero was over the food rejecting when he'd eaten the cookies. X was a very smart cookie. Especially since he'd made two mugs of the stuff. If Zero had taken the first drink X would have just drank both and Zero would have never known X had hoped. Wouldn't have felt like he'd let him down.

So he sat up a bit more, half-leaning on the many pillows, and drank while X drank his. He apparently wasn't very good at it, getting a chocolate moustache that X licked off, kittenish innocence but only in the sense of untainted. The gesture was not at all innocent in the sense of asexual.

For X to do something like that so naturally, almost giggling at Zero's reaction, was just amazing. "You're so cute."

Zero blinked. "Wait, how am I the cute one?" Huh?

"This is so all new to you, you are so touched by the littlest things! I'm sorry, I should have worked harder to wear you down. You objected so strongly to even friendly contact that I thought you knew what you were doing, that you really weren't ready to go any faster yet. Tell me you and Iris got beyond hand-holding and brief kisses on the front doorstep when you brought her home, Zero."

"Um…"

X sighed. "Zero, I would work on getting acclimated to kindness if you ever want to get laid. You're acting like a blushing bride, or an abused child, and it's activating my maternal protocols. If that's what you want, then I'm fine with that, but until you stop acting like a newbuilt with a crush and start acting like Zero, then if we go any further than kisses I'm going to feel like I'm taking advantage of you. I may be a virgin, but at least I know the theory. I've given a couple dozen reploids The Talk in my life. The reason I'm still a virgin is that they all seem so young, they looked up to me as the ancient when I'd only been awake a few months myself, and this sort of relationship is supposed to be a partnership. You're the only person I've ever been interested in because you're the only one who didn't see me as special, either as a wise elder or overly-idealistic and senile."

"X, you _are_ special and I'm not your equal." But if that was what X wanted him to be…

"In what sense? All people are equal. Rich, poor, human, android, reploid, robot master, male, female, genderless, they all have exactly the same worth inside. A person is a person. Everything else is window dressing. And don't you dare say you're not a person. That would be lying, and you know it."

"Yeah, but…"

"No buts! Oh dear, you really are making me act parental. Now that I think about it, you are an abused child." X snuggled. "Or were. This requires large amounts of retroactive cuddling. Better late than never."

"I think," and this was amazing to him, "I am currently saner than I have ever been. Sadly, that's not saying much. I can think clearly, but beneath the surface I'm still broken and the pieces are very sharp."

"I think you're right. I'm glad you agree with my diagnosis that you're feeling better." X smiled against his chest. "I wonder how to get you metaphorical safety gloves?"

"I have the feeling there might be something you can do, but I don't think you'd want me to go fishing for that bit of knowledge right now."

"Very true." Good Zero. "Don't strain yourself," X reminded him another time anyway.

"I don't know if this clarity will hold up if I have to see other people and they know what I've done, what I am."

"I don't think so either."

Zero had been hoping X would tell him he was knocking himself. Luckily, Zero's silences were a language X was fluent in. "Zero, this is as close to ideal conditions for you as I can manage. I'm going to keep you safe here and prove to you that a) I love you, b) you're a good person, and c) you can beat the virus. You need more confidence. Once you've gotten back on your feet and are defeating mavericks with one hand tied behind your back again you'll have that confidence. Until then, you need other people to have confidence in you for you, and I'm not going to let myself be outvoted by a majority composed of people who don't know you a hundredth as well as I do." Certainly not.

"Aren't people going to come by wanting cookies?"

"They were going to be surprise cookies, Zero. That's the best kind." X gave him a questioning look. "Didn't you seal us in here like that time in medical?"

"I didn't think to do anything. I just went to you as soon as I could, and I thought you would want to have people examine me and stuff."

X stiffened a bit. "Alia, if we are under constant observation instead of just being checked in on I am going to be very, very cross."

Zero checked the web for the first time since joining X. "Gah!" He wiped the memories of the several mavericks with high enough clearance to be in on this, and erased the virus from them with the same thought. While he was there, he only hesitated an instant before curing all the hunters of it, then he had to dart back out, shaking.

"Zero, what did you do?" X pushed himself up a bit to get a good look at him. A very disapproving look.

"They were watching. I checked the web, saw they'd seen, and just… wiped it and cured them without thinking about it or looking because I was shocked at the time so it was fine. Then… I was there, so, I did a blanket deletion on hunters before I couldn't stand it anymore." He was breathing hard, overtaxed systems needing the cooling effect.

"Zeeero! What did I say about pushing yourself?" X was most, most displeased. Frowning, he sat up, crossing his arms. "On the one hand, bad Zero means no cookie. On the other, you just did something really great and I'm proud of you." How to handle this?

"Um, I don't know how great. That was blanket deletion, X. I was planning to just get the memories of being a maverick while I got the virus, but I kind of just, um… total amnesia. I should have just gone for the virus, but without any memory healing they'd either be traumatized or believe what the virus conditioned them to think and actively attempt to get infected again, most of them." He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side, ashamed. "They're not mavericks but they're not going to remember who they were either, not until they manage to trigger the memories. I'm sorry!"

X climbed on top of him. "Zero, look at me."

Shamefully, he did. "They're not mavericks anymore. They will get their memories back later, yes?" At Zero's nod, X continued. "That's nowhere near as bad as being dead, right?"

Zero nodded again.

"And most hunters would prefer being dead to being maverick, right?"

Zero nodded a third time, hopefully.

"Then it's a very definite improvement. You did good, Zero. Not as good as you would have if you'd _listened _and hadn't pushed yourself, but still good. Are they still watching?"

"I have no idea. I don't have any more eyes and ears on base. The security vidsystem is still on, and that screen's still displaying it, but that might just be that they're too busy with the people who just collapsed to turn it off."

"Aaalia…" That drawing out was the equivalent of counting to three. If those cameras aren't off by the time I finish saying your name, then you are getting a lecture, young lady!

"Um…"

"Oh, yes, you were keeping an eye on me. Will she be okay?"

"You're not mad?" Zero asked in a small voice.

"It helped you stay sane. She's a hunter, she came in knowing the risks and willing to take them for a good cause."

"It was just watching you. She wasn't a leak or anything. I didn't use her to hurt anyone."

"I suppose then if it was you that meant Sigma _wasn't _able to turn her into a saboteur or assassin-type maverick." X pet him. "I really don't think she has grounds for complaint. I mean, well obviously being infected isn't that pleasant, but you didn't change how she acted at all. I didn't detect any personality change and I was watching for it quite closely."

"Sleeper-class. She had the virus, but it wasn't doing anything but laying groundwork and giving me access to her head. Sigma can't do that, he doesn't have the web so to be useful a maverick has to know they are and get information out by normal means."

"You could remote-control someone without altering their personality? I thought so. My poor twig," somehow twig had ended up the abbreviation of second-in-command, "had no idea getting me the marshmallows wasn't his own idea."

Mavericks had the memories of the real person, they could act like them almost perfectly. The fact that their personalities had changed and occasionally they slipped was their only weakness as infiltrators. After all, they were already in when they became infiltrators.

"It's a good thing this will be over soon. People are paranoid as it is, the idea that a maverick might not even know they are one will raise it to new heights."

"I didn't make many of them. I wasn't… doing strategy. They were all in the hunters."

"For me? So that you could watch me without making our friends killers?"

He nodded, shy again. "I converted some that were already there into sleepers too…"

"Thank you." X kissed him in the corner of his lips. "I'm amazed you were able to do that."

"It was… you."

"Because when you dealt with them it was while they were watching me or it was in the context of me?" Zero's expression confirmed X's rewording was accurate. "Whereas your borrowed bodies and those in the vicinity ended up the victims of your death wish. You wanted to die, you hated those who had that luxury, and you wanted me to kill you. Even before the glow became visible in the borrowed ones, it was easy to tell which one you were. Although sometimes you were hard to track down because you often didn't stay in them for more than a couple of minute before dying somehow." X's eyes held nothing but sympathy, grief for him. "Kamikaze, giving someone with no chance an opening, you needed to die and all of the dying's screams were your screams as well, and I knew that you'd scream their screams long after their voices died. Don't break again, Zero. I don't want to have to see you in so much agony again."

"I'm sorry," and he was apologizing to all of them.

"Thinking about that isn't breaking you. I'm proud of you, Zero." The camera issue had been utterly forgotten as they focused on each other.

"It's… If it were killing for killing's sake, then it would break me. I thought it was that, that I was enjoying it and that was why I hungered for it. That wasn't it, though. I didn't want their pain, their deaths. I wanted mine, and when I look at it, X, when I… I was insane. I was broken. Just… If I'd been in my right mind… If I were evil, I wouldn't have thrown myself off buildings. I'd have repeated the Cataclysm, successfully this time. That was what Sigma though I would do, what Omega would do. If I weren't immune, if the virus had kept me… a maverick's brand of insane, you'd all be dead. I'm very smart, and I'm a Commander for a reason besides immunity. If I'd actually wanted to kill, I would have done so much more of it. The only time, the only time I felt at all alive was when there should have been some chance of death. I thought I was making them scream because I was that kind of monster. The real monster would have just crushed them like insects. I wanted their screams to bring them help, someone, someone who could kill me. When they died, all I felt was anger, that they had left me behind and wouldn't help me." This was pain he was feeling now, but, for maybe the first time, it was his own pain. He was regretting the fact he had been hurt instead of deriving a twisted pleasure from it, thinking he deserved it.


	6. Stand up and build anew!

"I should have tried harder to track you down." X felt that he was the guilty one now?

"You had Sigma's forces to deal with, X. They were the intelligent threat. You had more important things to deal with than me being a crybaby."

"Zero, call yourself a crybaby again and I will spank you like one." Zero's WTF expression when he heard that merited a disapproving look. "Get your mind out of the gutter, you don't know what's in there and I am not interested. I hope you aren't masochistic naturally or we're really not going to work out, you know how much I hate hurting people. It's certainly not something I'd want to do for fun." Then he frowned. "If you weren't controlling Alia, then her deciding to watch us now was her own decision. If it was, Alia, you are both in major trouble and getting a very nice holiday gift! It's amazing how clouds are sometimes almost entirely composed of silver lining, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Dealing with the virus, deleting it, repairing the damage, was really the biggie. After all, it was what traumatized you in the first place. Dealing with those with situations analogous to yours was practically begging for flashbacks. The atmosphere cleanup was probably a great deal of work, but there wasn't atmospheric virus during the Cataclysm. It wasn't stirring up traumatic memories. When you realized we were being spied on, your maidenly virtue," X laughed a little, probably the closest he'd come to sniggering in his life.

When he had almost finished laughing, he continued, "Maiden, sorry, it _made you_ both want to have them forget it and stop doing it. So you cured them, and this is important, without thinking about it. Which meant making the attempt didn't trigger flashbacks and reinforce the belief that doing it would cause enough flashbacks to break you. You had done it, succeeded in it, and nothing bad happened. Even you realized that this was important, and tried to take advantage of the lack of flashbacks before the adrenaline-equivalent wore off, leading you to cure the hunters, _easily _the group most analogous to yourself. I think the total memory wipe might have been a bit of a Freudian slip, actually. There were other, worse ways what you described could have gone. Many of them. A lot worse." X was the greatest living expert on how the reploid mind worked, after all. "If you hadn't thought of that as the 'best' emergency option the instant you knew you couldn't pull off the planned scenario, it would have been, well." In other words, an utter catastrophe. "Which is also part of why I said not to push yourself."

"It was almost reflex."

"I know, I know you and helping people, especially the hunters, Zero. Let me finish. At that point you proceeded to make a mountain out of a hole in the ground on the issue of your mistake, and you listened to me amazingly easily. You were suddenly much easier to get through to, much more rational. Then, with Alia, you were embarrassed as opposed to insanely guilt-tripping. That was why I tried bringing up the topic of the deaths this time, which are really the only deaths you could be held anything near accountable for. That might have been pushing it, but we seemed to be on a roll and you were a little in shock over how well things had gone. Emotionally overloaded, only with the good emotions. If you were normal you would be jumping or crying with joy right now, or something along those lines. You really have no experience dealing with happiness." A cookie was offered and taken.

As Zero chewed, "Where were we? Oh. In any case, the deaths involving you can be blamed on two causes: the virus, and virus trauma-induced insanity. You'd just beaten the virus, so I was hoping the high and healthy mental state would make the contrast between sanity and how you were then too clear for even you to miss. And you were able to arrive at the same verdict you'd been involved in helping former irregulars get yet never applied to yourself: not guilty by reason of temporary insanity."

Zero's mouth was slightly open, almost in awe. X was right.

"It's probably going to take a lot of time for that to sink in fully, but I would be willing to bet brownies you could cure the rest of the mavericks, oh, by the end of today." This time the cookie was not bitten down on, although X was able to almost fit it in the open mouth. "Zero?" He didn't think he'd messed up, but this was Zero, he didn't want to mess up Zero!

Then he blinked, signaling that his optics were being used again: he'd hooked his visual processor up to another sense. "You've won that bet."

When X was overjoyed he didn't cry or jump. He just smiled, and it wasn't anything like dawn. Zero wasn't good as metaphors, but he really didn't think there was anything good enough to be compared to this smile. Well, he'd heard sex was great, but he didn't have a basis for comparison and from what he'd heard sex was, well, dirty. This wasn't.

Then he hugged Zero, and it wasn't tight and it wasn't hard. It wasn't those things because it didn't need to be. He wasn't afraid anymore of losing Zero. It was just being in each other's arms, being together, and sex would involve that, but would it be better or a distraction?

His sexual stimuli regulation system was of the opinion that it would be so very much better. His emotional stimuli regulation system was of the opinion that it was already on the verge of overloading from so many stimuli of such a rarely-encountered type, and until it reconfigured to handle the new workload Zero had better stop it with the joygasming before he fainted so that the system shutdown could allow a rapid reconfiguration as opposed to atypical stimuli overload and one hell of a headache.

It wasn't until he got a warning light in the corner of his vision that he remembered that he could use the Dolphin protocol to switch all operations to part of his systems, reconfigure the other, switch everything to the remodeled part, reconfigure the first part, and avoid having to reboot to make changes on that level. Dr. Cain's models had to do things like that either unconscious or while asleep. He could do it mid-battle.

Maybe there were some advantages to being a Wilybot. Wilyoid?

Android. Like X.

Who finally separated from him. "I'm going to make those brownies." He kissed Zero on the cheek, or tried to, but Zero intercepted his lips with his own, earning a brief kiss and a smile. "If you're still watching, get down here and bring party supplies, that's an order!"

"Um, X? You won the bet. You don't have to make brownies."

"Oh? Well, I won, so I can make brownies if I want to."

"I took you up on it, so I should make them."

X didn't make a bet this time, but the sentiment was clear. "I sincerely doubt you have ever made brownies, or anything at all similar, from scratch in your entire life. I'm making them. You can be my assistant and lick the batter off things afterwards."

Zero had no idea what he was talking about, but at least this time he didn't assume it was something kinky despite a keyword that invoked images of _lick_ing… chocolate-and-stuff-goop off of X.

"You really have a lot to learn." X shook his head, clearly pitying Zero. "You can help with the first batch, and then if you'd like I could watch while you make another one and let you know if something's about to go wrong. You do have to be careful with cooking. It's like chemistry, only fewer explosions and more, well, we don't have to worry about salmonella but rock-hard brownies are a tragedy. And sometimes you do get explosions, or I do when I let rookies use my oven. It's a good thing it's self-cleaning."

That sounded like there were funny stories involved, but Zero had a more pressing issue on his mind, now that the reconfiguration and defragmentation had cleared it. How to go about this?

Iris had almost been pity-dating him at first. He'd actually stammered, and been utterly embarrassed. Once they were actually dating he viewed her as a partner instead of someone certain to reject him, and it had still be awkward, but… She'd been the victim of his issues. His substitute X, and yet she was not X.

They were already partners. The person who was almost dragging him by sheer force of personality (like a red giant orbiting a blue giant) to the kitchen had gone to a great deal of trouble to assure him that they still were. So the entire awkward phase had been, well, greatly extended, but if Zero acted awkward that was a sign that they weren't partners yet and X wanted his partner Zero. Until Zero stopped being awkward he was still clearly unhealthy and X would want to nurse him back to health, not stress him out by adding another dimension to their relationship. Also, it might be taking advantage of him and X wouldn't do that even if the person in question was begging to be taken advantage of.

Zero found those people creepy too…

Okay, he was good at strategy, even if he'd been deliberately failing at it recently. The best way to go about this was to…

Kiss the guy.

Okay, good, but he wanted more and at this rate he was going to flatten their lips with the force he was applying.

X? Was a genius. Although once Zero was reminded by that almost questioning little poke that oh yeah, there was more to kissing than just the lips it was Zero that dived in hungrily after X's tongue with his own. Get back here…

Tongues or even facsimiles thereof weren't all that interesting in general. Well, now that he thought about it… Anyway, this was X's tongue. Which therefore made it a lot more appealing then anyone else's tongue or, sadly, Iris' entire body. Her body was a very nice model, but it wasn't X's model. She wasn't X, and he owed her serious apologies. Very serious, what with the bringing her back from the dead as a maverick and other general fucked-up-ness.

Anyway, X's model was much better. Very nice proportions, interesting reactions, highly sensitive, and he could list things all day. Although, to be fair, he hadn't gotten to whatever 'base' this was with Iris, but, well, X.

X who was very reluctantly pulling away. "Are they coming?"

"Are who… oh, the party. What? I've never let myself think dir-" X looked very disapproving when he started calling this dirty, and Zero had to agree that dirty was a very incorrect term. "About sex before. And now I am. A lot. Because you're wonderful, gorgeous, and don't stop that!" During the encounter, X's hands had migrated up as Zero's had down. "Mmm…"

"And you look just like you'd be purring if you were a cat-you can purr?-when I scratch your scalp like this. Yes, I understand, but were they still watching us when I announced the party or not? If they turned the screen off before then, then they didn't get the invitation and we can just have the party later."

Zero checked the usage log and smiled. "They did. Turn it off, not get the invitation. And I've made it so they can't turn the cameras back on. I can do stuff with nanites like you wouldn't believe." Oh, possibilities. "And we're…" He had been going to say that they were going right back into that bed, but there was chocolate and stuff here. Decadent, but he'd missed out on that. And Sex with X (which sort of rhymed) was over the top unimaginable as it was.

What would work with him?

"You're looking fiendish." X clearly liked this.

He knew where the ice cream sundae supplies were.

Sadly, he didn't know about much else. Yeah, he was learning how to cook. He'd always had to look away when X was eating something really scrumptious, and he was going to make up for lost time when it came to that expression too.

Maybe he'd look even _better_ if it were an actual orgasm? The metaphor had to exist for a reason.

"I think I'd better tell you now that there will be no ripping off of clothing unless you buy it for that purpose."

He hadn't even thought of that! "You'd probably better take it off then. You like the strawberry syrup first, then the whipped cream, then the hot fudge, and… no, that' s on vanilla. You're more chocolate, which means caramel…"

"You memorized my favorite ice cream toppings?"

"And you know how I position my paperwork so that I can tell if anyone tampered with it while I was out of the office. Wait a minute, I haven't tried these things, no wonder I can't guess what goes with you. Just going to have to test out all of them. Any requests?"

"The carpet is harder to clean, so let's keep it on the kitchen area's tile; toss me the hot fudge and caramel so I can warm them up; and don't take your own clothes off, I have restraint and intend to take advantage of it."

"Think fast!"

X caught the jars with the ease of long practice. "Welcome back, Zero."

For an instant that seemed a little odd, when he realized how little like Zero he was acting. Then he thought about it, and realized that he was being Zero, just applying the focus to this that he'd normally reserved for weaponry and combat techniques (Hmm, wrestling…). He was, really being more Zero than he had ever been, since Commander Zero had been broken in every area but those essential to atonement, or his idiotic attempts at it.

Also, he needed to do something about this keyword sensitivity! Like teach X how to take serious, serious advantage of it.

"Glad to be back, X." This part was almost old ritual, though full of new significance in this instant. He'd start a new ritual. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Zero smiled, and then returned to the program that had been interrupted by this important announcement. "Do you want to give me that talk, or should I just start doing stuff and see what works? Hmm, no, let's go with both at the same time." He leaned back against the cupboards next to the countertop he'd put everything interesting on as X put the two hot ones with them. "I love your voice. I love to hear you talking about things like you putting your hands on my body, and letting me lick things off things, and coming, and my verbal input processor is as hungry for you as the rest of me. Talk…" not dirty, "tell me how it will be."

And he was unwrapped like the most wonderful present X had ever been given (and X treasured gifts for the feelings they contained), and this was utterly cliché but he really did feel, when he awakened from the exhausted slumber their exertions sent them into still floating in the afterglow that he had died and gone to heaven.

No one notices my chapter titles, but these are not entirely mine, they're adapted from a poem by Rudyard Kipling that is common domain (I think that's the term) and I do not own. The poem is called 'Hymn of Breaking Strain' and is typical Kipling in that it incorperates the modern day and modern beliefs into nice subversion. He's got great stuff. You've got to love a poem that says the reason women aren't given power in the world is that women are inherantly superior and see no reason for arms races with Germany and other male posturing. 'The Female of the Species' says that women are the gentle sex because they have their priorities straight and don't pick useless fights that they'll back down from if given an opportunity to save face. If a woman is trying to kill you it is because you have messed with them or those they love and you are dead meat. It's taking advantage of the Victorian era's adulation of the woman as Queen of home and sanity, and it's a bit too feminist by modern standards, but a real verbal artist uses the target's stereotypes against them.

'The White Man's Burden' is a wonderful, wonderful poke at how stupid colonialism is, or at least the reasons people would claim they were colonizing and enslaving these poor benighted savages. "The savage wars of peace' is a quote from that poem. Rudyard Kipling was a reporter who covered the wars in northern India, and illusions about superiority, doing the right thing, and so on don't last long when you're exposed to the true horror of colonialism. He wrote science fiction, and very good stuff, too. About a world in which dirigibles were the eqivalent of cars nowadays, and freight airlines, and so on. Very good stuff. Since he's in public domain everything's online.

I highly recommend reading the real _Jungle Books_. There's a story about the brutality of killing baby seals, Rikki Tikki Tavi is about the importance of preserving species (if they hadn't saved that mongoose they would have all been killed by the snakes), and Mowgli doesn't end up living in that village. They don't accept him, and the village ends up being destroyed. Mother Nature wins.


End file.
